


dream't that i was swimming

by justdoityoufucker



Series: time, love [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Magic, Anxiety, Chronic Illness, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, Fuck the Hokage, Gen, Lots of Crying, M/M, Magic as a Catalyst for Health Issues, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Repercussions? In MY Fantasy Shounen Manga? It's More Likely Than You Think, Secret Identity, Stream of Consciousness, Weird Fiction Elements, bad life choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 12:13:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16702345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdoityoufucker/pseuds/justdoityoufucker
Summary: When Iruka gets hired by the Academy, his salary goes up enough that he can move out of the run-down low income housing for chuunin. He picks an apartment on the nicer side of town, pays the damage deposit and first six months rent and even has enough left over to buy actual groceries and some clothes that aren’t second-hand.





	dream't that i was swimming

When Iruka gets hired by the Academy, his salary goes up enough that he can move out of the run-down low income housing for chuunin. He picks an apartment on the nicer side of town, pays the damage deposit and first six months rent and even has enough left over to buy actual groceries and some clothes that aren’t second-hand.

(he cries as he makes hotpot that evening in his new apartment, wearing clean socks and the same old sweater he’s patched time and time again but can’t throw away because it feels like  _ home _ . it’s the first time he’s had the fresh foods to make hotpot since his parents died)

It doesn’t go to his head. He’s lived most of his remembered life squirreling away everything he can, just in case, and you don’t just lose that overnight. Yes, he buys clothes and food and maybe some furniture from one of the second-hand shops, but most of it he puts away in his once meagre bank account. Gets ramen, maybe once a month, treats his friends when they will let him. It isn’t that he’s the poorest of them, especially not after he’s hired as a full teacher, but he’s something of the baby. They worry over him because he was the poorest for so long, never got his growth spurts because he wasn’t getting nutrition, would get sick at the slightest cold wind or cough.

Well, now he can actually afford nutritious food and medicine and doctor’s visits are included in his benefits package and, really, Iruka is crying a lot lately. For many reasons.

It helps that he’s finally being  _ recognized _ . Sealing and barrier magic are integral to the entire magical world and the system of the hidden village, yet Iruka was never properly trained or given his due for helping to keep the entire system stable. Having a position in the Academy allows him to demand a little more, ask for access to materials, to records. The Hokage has always professed to view him as something of a son, but hell if he ever actually treated him like one. But, looking at how the Hokage treated Asuma, maybe he did treat Iruka like a son.

The point is: Iruka, for perhaps the first time in his entire life (pre-parental-death-childhood notwithstanding) has agency, and by the gods it’s a heady drug.

-

He starts heading down the slippery slope that is the Hokage’s bad side when he fully dissects the seal holding the Kyuubi in Naruto and realizes it was the shittiest possible one that the Yondaime could have chosen. And then explodes half of a training field, but those two things aren’t necessarily linked.

( _ necessarily _ , because semantics matter and Iruka has mastered the art of bullshitting his way in circles around the Hokage. It’s an art, truly)

And that’s when Iruka picks up a shadow in the form of one of the Hokage’s elite infiltration and assassination force. There’s no point mentioning it, because the old man will just play dumb, but that doesn’t mean Iruka doesn’t make his shadow’s life absolute hell. He knows how to lose followers, how to hide and not be found. He spent all his childhood doing that, and just because his new shadow is an elite assassin doesn’t mean they’re any good at hide and seek.

It’s pathetic. And laughable, but he tries his best not to do that. You know, assassin, and all. (at least, that’s what he tells himself)

It doesn’t hurt that he does get Naruto in his class, even after all that. Though that, he feels, is more due to the placements already having been decided before he fucked up the Hokage’s entire life. Apparently.

It’s a delicate juggling act; he researches ways to help Naruto short of resealing the demon into him (a bad enough process when it happened naturally), teaches and tries not to chose favorites (that Haruno girl is  _ wicked _ smart), and tries not to get murdered by his still ever-present shadow. On the upside, crying happens a lot less. And only when he’s experiencing heightened emotions, as Kurenai calls them.

That does get a little nuts, particularly as they get closer and closer to Naruto’s class graduating. In all honesty, Iruka can’t remember what led up to it, but it was a very small disaster that came after a long line of big disasters. He--

\--well. He winds up with an Anbu trapped in a sealing barrier spell in his living room and is probably two minutes away from sobbing because he’s hit that horrible point of absolute exhaustion because Mizuki is terrible and he has exams to put together and the Kyuubi has been leaking through more and there’s nothing he can think to  _ do _ .

It doesn’t help that the man’s face is obscured by a wolf mask glowing bright with anti-removal spells. Fucking hell, his shadow has been Konoha’s most prolific killer and that just makes everything worse.

“Can you please,” he finally manages to say, pinching his nose so he won’t start sobbing like a baby, “leave me alone?”

Wolf cocks his head, which would be endearing if he wasn’t, you know, an  _ assassin there to probably kill him, what the fuck. _

And that’s when he does start sobbing.

-

Apparently Iruka’s made a bad enough impression on Wolf (and, by extension, the Hokage) that the man disappears the next day. If Iruka wasn’t trying to scrape together the remnants of his dignity and composure he’d be embarrassed, but he’s rocketed himself so far past that he doesn’t even care. All he wants is to survive the end of the school year and pass his entire class.

Naruto fucks that up. Okay, it’s not really Naruto’s fault, and it was something Iruka kind of anticipated with the whole fucked-up-seal thing. But.  _ Still _ . As if he doesn’t have enough on his goddamn plate already.

So when he finds Naruto in the woods, and Mizuki sneaking around like the slimy, leech-infested asshole he is, Iruka decides:

Fuck. This. Shit.

And he breaks Mizuki’s goddamn nose, jaw, and most of his ribs for good measure. And burns down two abandoned buildings and several really old trees. And terrifies Naruto into coming quietly which isn’t just a surprise, it’s a goddamn  _ miracle _ .

So, they’re none the worse for wear when they’re intercepted by some other jounin and a squad of Anbu. Well, except for Mizuki. Iruka gladly hands Naruto and the scroll over and finds himself shunted along to the Tower, where he’s set in front of the Hokage and spends the better part of the next half hour ignoring the man’s attempts to act nice to him.

Only when the Hokage mentions his and the council’s intention to place Naruto in another class at the Academy does he speak up. “No way in  _ hell _ are you making that boy sit through yet another year of the same classes and information,” he says, and from the Hokage’s face, he’s apparently surprised. “I tried to tell you at the beginning of his year with me that the Kyuubi’s power is interfering with his own magical power, but you refused to listen. The only reason he’s been unable to successfully pass the final exams is because they always rely on magic that he is unable to do, specifically because of the Kyuubi’s interference. You’re just setting him up for failure.”

“Nobody in the village is properly equipped to help him,” the Hokage says, wearily. “If the Sannin Jiraiya could be contacted--”

“Fucksake,” Iruka isn’t going to be proud of this later, but to hell with it all, “ _ I  _ will help him, since you apparently can’t see under your own nose.”

Mouth agape. Pipe dropped from his fingers. “Iruka,” The Hokage blusters.

But Iruka’s already halfway out the door, and looks back long enough to give the Hokage a look that says ‘try and stop me’.

-

Naruto is feverish when Iruka collects him, so he places a simple warming spell on him, wraps  the blankets on his bed around him, and carries him out of the village to a cleared field that looks good. The kid falls asleep on the way there, so Iruka settles him at the base of a nearby tree, erects a barrier to keep him protected.

The task is simple, but requires preparation that cannot be skipped if he wants to keep the demon trapped while he reconstructs the sealing connecting it to Naruto. He glances at the boy; asleep, skin of his nose and forehead flushed. Thinks of the days at the Academy where Naruto would break out of the window with the other boys, would not have any lunch (and Iruka would inevitably pay the cooks to give him some in the cafeteria), would smile nonetheless, infectious and bright and kind.

It  _ matters _ . He pulls out the wych elm tree wand he saves for large scale sealing when he needs a channel, closes his eyes and breathes, focuses.

A whisper of magic across his face is his only warning when his shadow reappears for the first time in two weeks, silent but close, a hand outstretched to catch Iruka’s free fingers.

Wolf’s pale, long fingers are the only skin exposed on his body.  _ You will need help _ , he murmurs through his skin, the words jittering through Iruka’s nerves to his brain. Iruka remains still for a moment longer than necessary, fingers caught against Wolf’s.

“Well,” he says, brusquely. “I’d assume you have conducting wire, then.”

He keeps razor sharp watch of Wolf while he scrawls out the necessary figures and incantations on the dirt of the ground. They’re far enough away from the village that it hopefully won’t catch fire, but close enough that if anything goes wrong the Kyuubi will probably kill the Hokage. It’s the little things that matter.

Wolf does as Iruka instructs, lays out the conducting wire to connect all the aspects of the grid that need to be connected. He’s smart, Iruka will give him that, but admiration of intelligence does not correlate to trust.

“Hey,” he releases the barrier around Naruto, touches his forehead. Still feverish; his eyes, when they blink open, are a little unfocused. He’s glad he managed to explain what they would be doing the day before, after he’d left the Tower, because Naruto looks completely out of it. “You ready?”

“Mh,” Naruto nods and stands, a little wobbly at first. He shuffles into the grid, to where Iruka points, sits down with his legs crossed. Wolf is gone, somewhere in the trees, and Iruka is thankful because it’s easier to focus with just the two of them.

“Remember, focus,” Iruka instructs. Naruto nods, closes his eyes. And Iruka stands over him, raises his hands and lets his expand and flow into the wires, flash and light the field.

The power that envelopes the area is blistering with heat. The Kyuubi’s influence, no doubt, and Iruka tries his best to ignore it.

_ You’re new _ , a voice says in his mind. It’s as blistering as the power, feels like it’s burning through him, low and growling, and it’s instinct to jerk away from it, but he can’t. That’s  _ Naruto _ , in the Kyuubi’s core, bright and sunflower-yellow, soft and warm.

Iruka calls to him, and the warm magic answers.

-

He blinks his eyes open, and sees the now-familiar ceiling over his bed. That’s normal, that’s--

what the fuck. Where’s Naruto? What happened to Naruto? The last thing he remembers is starting the final incantations to bind the Kyuubi’s power away from where it could affect (pollute) Naruto’s magic, and then nothing.

He’s still wearing his clothes, his brain notes as he pushes the blankets off, muscles screaming in protest. Everything hurts, the touch of the magic he used still burning into his nerves and muscles. Iruka can barely move his hands, but he forces himself to pull his shoes on, head for the door. Naruto is more important.

Halfway down the stairs to the ground floor, his legs decide they might or might not stop working, and he has to grab the railing with his painfully stiff hands. He has to bite his lip to stop himself from crying out, and everything just hurts  _ so bad _ he can feel the tears beginning to leak out of his eyes.

A soft touch, cool skin against his forehead.  _ Why are you up? _ asks Wolf through his skin again, the touch of the words strangely kind and sincere.

“Naruto,” Iruka croaks, and what the hell is happening, the man is picking him up like he is delicate bone china, taking him back up the stairs. If he wasn’t furious at his progress being nullified (including his shoes, which Wolf takes off once they are back inside his apartment) he would have probably forcibly set himself on fire in confusion. Wolf was his shadow, an assassin waiting for him to show his true colors in order to take care of him in the name of the Hokage. Shadows did not help you defy the Hokage’s orders and reconstruct a seal. 

Shadows did not carry you like you were bone china.

The fury and confusion disappear as Wolf again touches his forehead, the tips of his fingers cool and soft.  _ The boy is fine; you did well. But now you must rest. _ And he’s looking at Iruka, the delicate grey of his right eye in contrast to the blood red of his left, dimly visible through the slots in his mask. It exudes mesmer, and Iruka can’t fight it.

“He better be,” Iruka croaks, and before Wolf can even pull the blankets over him, he’s unconscious.

-

The more his magic replenishes itself, the better he feels. His hands no longer refuse to do as he wishes, he can walk, and most importantly he knows that Wolf did not lie to him. Naruto is fine.

Naruto is better than fine, Naruto seems like a ray of the purest sunshine personified and Iruka could not ask for more than that. It helps that he’s landed an apprenticeship, though Iruka doesn’t know more of his assignment other than that. Iruka doesn’t have the patience or mental capacity to ask the Hokage about that; he’s decided the best course of action will be to avoid the man until he is called or until one of them dies.

Though he is placed on leave from the Academy, and that only makes him think bad things are in store for the future, for him.

He doesn’t see his shadow anymore, and he doesn’t go outside unless he has to.

-

The Hokage’s summons finally come a week after he’s fully recovered from reconstructing the seal magics on the Kyuubi, and has begun going mental from the absolute boredom and uncertainty.

Iruka walks into the Hokage’s office, and finds the entire council waiting for him.

“I was wrong to not support your efforts to help Naruto,” the Hokage says, steepling his fingers in front of his nose, “but now that you have done so, I would like to present you with some opportunities.”

-

It’s too much. It’s too much and he’s shaking as he walks home, trying not to think of the things that the Hokage offered, trying to place one foot in front of the other and clear his head.

There’s no point to any of this, he feverishly and miserably thinks as he lets himself into his apartment, shaking fingers making the task take longer than it should. Maybe he could just run away and pretend Konoha doesn’t exist and the Hokage won’t send someone to kill him. Won’t send his shadow to kill him. Iruka doesn’t think about that, drops his keys and jacket, toes off his shoes and crawls into his bed.

Yeah, the recognition and allowances were and are nice, but is it really worth it? But, then again, the Hokage never said he  _ has _ to accept anything.

So. Iruka pulls himself out of his bed, splashes cold water on his face. Maybe he should eat, but he can’t stand the thought of doing so, not with what he’s about to do. He picks up his keys, his jacket, pulls his shoes back on and retraces his steps. The Hokage’s alone in his office when Iruka lets himself in, looks up. Expectant.

“I already have a job,” Iruka says, cocks his head, “and I enjoy it. That is all.”

“Iruka.”

He walks out the door, firmly closes it behind him even as he hears the Hokage rise. Walks out of the Tower, back to his apartment. Oh, well. Whatever happens will happen, he tells himself, as for the second time that day he drops his things, and goes to curl up in his bed.

-

The Academy is the same when he returns, reinstated, two days later. It’s unnerving, as so many things and people have changed, as  _ he _ has changed. Maybe he was wrong to decline the Hokage’s offers, even if they were unsavory, because he feels like around every corner there waits someone to catch him in... _ some _ thing.

He doesn’t sleep well. If he sleeps.

-

Iruka’s spiraling, and he knows it, but there’s nothing he can do, not with the Hokage and the Academy and the  _ stress-- _

-

\--he wakes up in bed, blinks at the familiar ceiling. Cool fingers, touching his forehead.  _ You are worse _ , Wolf’s thoughts jitter to him.

“Worse?” Iruka asks.

_ You have stopped sleeping and you no longer eat when you should; _ the fingers and hand flatten, almost a caress of his face,  _ what ails you? _

Iruka can’t stop the laugh, even though he knows it’ll just turn right into sobs. “It’s nothing. It’s my fucking mind.” God, can’t this just  _ end _ ? Can’t Wolf stop whatever this is?

Wolf does not stop. Wolf picks him up, blanket and all (and when did he get in bed? he’s wearing pyjamas but doesn’t remember putting them on and the sheets smell cleaner than he knows they are. or were.) keeps his fingers pressed to Iruka’s bare skin.  _ We are-- _ I _ am going to help you. _

And that’s how Iruka finds himself at the hospital, without really knowing what’s happening. Wolf stays, even as Iruka’s admitted and taken around to psychiatrist and put on something to make him sleep. They draw blood and have him pee in a cup before finally letting him lay down, and when he does, Wolf is there. Hand pressed to the inside of his wrist, like he’s taking Iruka’s pulse.

_ I will be here _ , the words are soft, warm, and a million other adjectives that make Iruka confused to think about _ , please rest. _

-

He sleeps and sleeps and even though he cannot remember his dreams when he finally wakes up, he knows they were warm and, even if they weren’t necessarily pleasant, they were not unpleasant. It’s a change.

Wolf is there, silent. His fingers flex against Iruka’s pulse point again, the only sign that he’s awake, alive. The sun frames his mask and grey-silver hair and Iruka thinks he might still be dreaming because the room doesn’t feel real,  _ he _ doesn’t feel real.

_ You had dangerously low blood sugar, _ Wolf taps his wrist with one finger,  _ you were dehydrated _ . The words sound terse. Worried. Wolf’s fingers tighten around his wrist, don’t let go.

“Sorry,” Iruka rasps. Wolf’s masks jerks toward him, and through the slits Iruka can see his mismatched eyes, confused or maybe he’s just imagining it. “You’re worried.”

Still, then his shoulders bow forward. A sigh.  _ I am worried for you; I have been worried for you. You worry little for yourself _ .

The truth of that statement is not lost on Iruka, as much as it hurts. He doesn’t know what to say, how to respond. Wolf worries for him--but why? Bone china, he thinks, and he slides his arm back so he can catch Wolf’s fingers in his own. Squeezes. “Thank you.”

-

He keeps his shadow, though Wolf is less of a shadow and more of a companion by the time Iruka is considered fit to leave the hospital. How long that is, he isn’t quite sure, but long enough for him to rack up several diagnoses and veritable cabinet of medications. Magic can’t do everything, it seems, and he feels particularly drained on that front when he finally shuffles back into his apartment, Wolf having left him to be alone for a while.

Naruto visited him, and his friends (because, funny that, he has those and they worry about him like Wolf does), but being alone in his own apartment is relieving in a way that nothing really has been. He peels his shirt off, the loose hospital pants, doesn’t feel bad about muttering a basic warming spell to wind through the empty (and somewhat dusty) rooms while he climbs in the shower.

Warm water is a balm of its own, sluicing away the smell and feel of the hospital still clinging to his skin. There’s a tightness in his back that washes away slowly in the heat, and he stays under the water much longer than strictly necessary.

He pulls a towel from the cupboard with an unnecessary flick of magic, stands in front of the mirror and waits for the steam to evaporate. Twists, looks at the pale splotches of skin littering his back and shoulders in a random pattern like oversized stars in the sky, galaxies and nebulae colliding together. The patterning on his hands is less noticeable because the skin there is lighter, but now that he knows what to look for it’s easy to pick out.

Iruka breathes, touches his fingers to his neck. He knows what the problem is, now; he’ll be fine. Anyway, he has help.

Non-hospital issue clothes go on, and he leaves the bathroom and his discarded towel and dirty clothes to deal with later. The kitchen is sparse, but there’s tea and uncooked rice and he’ll settle for those as he empties the bag of his medications and appointment slips. It’s still a lot to take in. Bottles and bottles; he stacks them on the counter next to the fridge where he won’t be able to forget them.

The rice and tea are simple and good, and when he’s done eating he has a visitor in the form of Wolf, standing next to the window in the living room. Then he’s next to Iruka, fingertips brushing Iruka’s wrist.  _ Okay? _

Iruka nods. He’s okay.

-

Wolf’s skin is paler than even the mismatched patches of Iruka’s skin, his hands long and gentle. Thin scars, criss-crossing the joints like the shatter-patterns of glass.  _ The magic made it worse, _ Wolf tells him, sitting on the floor in front of Iruka,  _ using so much of it left your body vulnerable _ .

It makes sense and Iruka doesn’t know why he didn’t think of that earlier. He was nearly used up with holding the Kyuubi while rebuilding the sealing magic, a feat that likely would’ve killed him had he not planned for it in the first place, and without the assistance of anyone else he had to spread thinner and thinner than he should’ve. Even after.

“Even my skin?” Iruka asks. Wolf’s head dips in a nod, his fingers smoothing along the splotches of paleness on Iruka’s palms, barely visible in the sunlight.

_ Likely begun before, but exacerbated _ .

They sit. Companionable silence, comfortable. Fingers touching, an intimate gesture that is normal, expected.

_ I should go _ , Wolf says, the words tinged with hesitation as they flow to Iruka.

Iruka doesn’t even think of the Hokage, or magic, or anything except for Wolf holding him like he’s bone china, breakable.  _ Worth saving _ . He doesn’t even know who the man is, but they share something--something immovable.

“You can always stay,” Iruka says, and the squeeze of Wolf’s fingers, the warmth of his unvocalized thoughts and feelings is enough of an answer.

**Author's Note:**

> what was the actual story of this? i don't fuckin know bruv but it was cathartic as hell to write!!!  
> if it isn't clear iruka has vitiligo&some other thyroid-based problems which exacerbated the anxiety and depresh and also caused the blood sugar drop (thankfully have not had that happen to me, but have gotten close to that and lemme tell you, it's a scary experience and it sucks!!) i personally don't have vitiligo but i've got that other stuff, so if my portrayal of vitiligo is in some way inaccurate please let me know!


End file.
